We reported recently about our publication [1] which shows that during the last centuries all climate changes were caused by periodic ( i.e. natural ) processes. Non-periodic processes like a warming through the monotonic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause at most 0.1° to 0.2° warming for a doubling of the CO2 content, as it is expected for 2100, within the uncertainty of the analysis.

We find that 2 cycles of periods 200+ years and ~65 years determine practically completely the climate changes. All other cycles are weaker and non-periodic processes play no significant role. ( See Fig. 4 )

The ~65 year cycle is the well-known, much studied, and well understood “Atlantic/Pacific oscillation” ( AMO/PDO ). It can be traced back for 1400 years. The AMO/PDO has no external forcing it is “intrinsic dynamics”, an “oscillator”.

Although the spectral analysis of the historical instrumental temperature measurements [1] show a strong 200+ year period, it cannot be inferred from these with certainty, since only 240 years of measurement data are available. However, the temperatures obtained from the Spannagel stalagmite show this periodicity as the strongest, by far, climate variation since about 1100 AD.

The existence of this 200+ year periodicity has none the less been questioned, doubting the reliability of temperature determinations from stalagmites. ( Even though the temperatures from the Spannagel stalagmite agree well with the temperatures derived from North Atlantic sedimentation; and even though the solar “de Vries cycle”, which has this period length and agrees in phase, is known for a long time as essential factor determining the global climate. )

A perfect confirmation for the existence and the dominant influence of the 200+ year cycle, as found by us [1] and with it the definite proof of absence of CO2 influence on the climate, is now provided by a recent paper [2] which analyses solar activities for periodic processes.

Fig. 1 Spectrum of solar activity showing the 208 year period as the strongest climate variation

The spectrum Fig. 1 ( Fig. 1d of [2] ) shows clearly a 208 year period as the strongest variation of the solar activity.

Fig. 2 ( Fig. 4 of [2] ) gives the solar activity of the past until today, as well as the prediction for the coming 500 years. ( This prediction is considered possible due to the ( multi-) periodic character of the activity. )

The solar activity agrees well with the terrestrial climate. It shows, in particular, clearly all historic temperature minima. Thus the future temperatures can be predicted from the activities – as far as they are determined by the sun ( the AMO/PDO is not determined by the sun ).

The 200+ year period found here [2], as it is found by us [1] is presently at its maximum. Through its influence the temperature will decrease until 2100 to a value like the one of the last “little ice age” 1870.

The wavelet analysis of the solar activity Fig. 3 ( Fig. 1b of [2] ) has interesting detail. In spite of its limited resolution it shows ( as our analysis of the Spannagel stalagmite did ) that the 200+ year cycle set in about 1000 years ago. This oscillation appears, according to Fig. 3, regularly all 2500 years. ( The causes for this latter 2500 year periodicity are probably ununderstood at present.)

Fig. 3 Wavelet analysis ( showing which oscillations were active at which time ) of solar activity. The dominant oscillations (periods between 125 years and 250 years) are clearly recognizable and recurring every 2500 years

Summarising: the analysis of solar activity proves the existence and the strength of the 200+ year periodicity which we found from historical temperature measurements, as well as from the Spannagel stalagmite data. This 200+ year cycle is apparently the one known as “de Vries cycle”.

This solar “de Vries cycle” together with the AMO/PDO determine practically completely the global climate of the past ( Fig. 4 ). This rules out any significant influence of CO2 on the climate. The latter is not surprising in view of the small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and its weak infrared absorption cross section (also in view of the various proves of NEGATIVE water feedback ).

Fig. 4 ( Fig. 6 of [1] ) Measured temperatures ( black ) and constructed from the strongest 6 Fourier components ( red ). The Fourier analysis yields the 200+ year cycle for the main excursion: the drop of temperature from 1780 to 1870 and its subsequent rise to the present. This cycle was confirmed by the stalagmite data [1] and is again now confirmed by the solar activity [2] . One can see that the temperature is determined essentially by the 200+ year cycle superimposed with the 65 year cycle.

The present “stagnation” of global temperature ( Fig. 5 ) is essentially due to the AMO/PDO: the solar de Vries cycle is presently at its maximum, around which it changes negligibly. The AMO/PDO is presently beyond its maximum, corresponding to the small decrease of global temperature. Its next minimum will be 2035. Due to the de Vries cycle the global temperature will drop until 2100 to a value corresponding to the “little ice age” of 1870.

One notes that in Fig.5 the curves were adjusted to agree at 1980. Correctly they should agree for preindustrial times. Such correct adjustment would probably increase the discrepancy between models and reality further substantially.

One may note, that the stronger temperature increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, which is “officially” argued to prove warming by CO2 is essentially due to the AMO/PDO.

Note: By publishing this, I offer it for discussion and consideration, I don’t explicitly endorse its methodology or conclusion as I have seen a number of curve fitting and cyclical exercises before that are able to extract cycles and then hindcast fit those cycles. This may be one of those instances, so I urge caution in consideration of the claim. On the plus side, I did find this Nature SR article that shows a 208 year cycle (Seuss cycle) in Indian Monsoon data., and of course we know that there is a 65 year cycle in the AMO as outlined here. – Anthony

At least they are willing to make a falsifiable prediction, although I won’t be around for another 500 years to verify it. But if the climate continues to cool over the next few years, I would bet that they they are more likely to be right than Michael Mann and his hockey stick.

Singer and Avery (“Unstoppable Global Warming”) suggested there is a 1,500 year cycle. Then there are the much longer Milankovitch Cycles which will eventually drive the earth into a 90,000 year ice age. Civilisation has emerged during the current warm and productive “inter-glacial period”. Prior to that it was too cold for civilisations to develop. The very best statisticians should analyse the long-term temperature record and estimate the periodicity and amplitude of such cycles and progressively remove them from the temperature series – beginning with the longest cycles and ending with the shortest (65 years according to these authors). We would then all have a series to look at that has been decyclicized (the equivalent of a statisticians deseasonalized data). Whatever is left might then be attributed to mankind – and/or factors not previously identified. Do we have an eminent statistician who could advise whether or not this is feasible?
ChrisMcS

Seems like an unfinished edit under figure 1. It appears that the first line “climate” is wrong and was probably intended to be replaced by the second line “solar activity”.
“Fig. 1 Spectrum of solar activity showing the 208 year period as the strongest climate variation
The spectrum Fig. 1 ( Fig. 1d of [2] ) shows clearly a 208 year period as the strongest variation of the solar activity.”

Please define the “well-known, much studied, and well understood ‘Atlantic/Pacific oscillation’ ( AMO/PDO )”.
Please also define the mechanism through which the PDO varies global temperatures, since the PDO does not represent the sea surface temperature of the North Pacific.

“This oscillation appears, according to Fig. 3, regularly all 2500 years. ( The causes for this latter 2500 year periodicity are probably ununderstood at present.)”
This is probably sign of modulation by another factor or constructive/destructive interference patterns. During destructive interference the wavelet analysis (with its shorter window) will show it as absent only for it to reappear at regular intervals. Often such modulation or interference interpretations are mathematically equivalent. Neither is “correct” until you understand the cause.

Stalegtite etc seems fine but I’m very cautious about the FFT idea. This seems like a repetition of RC Saumarez’s erroneous application that will necessarily just replicate the sample interval.
500 year projection seems very questionable no matter how you do it and actually seems unnecessary to the main point of the essay. 2100 would have been enough to make the point.

Bob says: “Please also define the mechanism through which the PDO varies global temperatures, since the PDO does not represent the sea surface temperature of the North Pacific.”
I was sure you’d contribut that. 😉
Although derived from N. Pac SST, PDO represents Pacific wide variation, I don’t see the authors saying N. Pac SST _causes_ global climate.

Looks incomparably more plausible to me than the CO2 travesty.
So the next de Vries solar minimum will more or less coincide with the second next AMO/PDO minimum in 2080-2100. What global average temperature to be expected? It might be known as the Lübecke minimum, if not overshadowed by the start of the imminent next ice age.

Please identify the 6 temperature datasets used for the “Measured temperatures” in Figure 4 and please also identify the smoothing used on the global temperature data (HADCRUT4?) and model outputs (CMIP5 or CMIP3?) in Figure 5.

From referenced paper:
“…of the stalagmite data. The latter shows a drift over 1600 yr
of peak intensity from the 128-yr period to the 256-yr period.
A further doubling to ∼ 500 yr (peak visible in the spectrum,
right Fig. 3) causes the recent weakening of the 250-yr pe-
riod, visible in the wavelet diagram. Such a shifting of en-
ergy from a fundamental to a subharmonic frequency com-
ponent is characteristic of the Feigenbaum universal scenario
of transition to chaos by a cascade of subharmonics, for non-
linear, dissipative systems with energy input (Feigenbaum,
1978, 1983).”
I’m a little nervous of these frequencies being submulitiples of the circa 2000y dataset. (describing fig 5 of ref 1 that derives from Torrence & Compo 1998).
” This does not rule out a
warming by anthropogenic influences such as an increase of
atmospheric CO2. Such secular effects could have been in-
corporated by the DFT, e.g., into the 250-yr cycle obtained
from M6, and would then not show up as a discrepancy be-
tween SM6 and RM6.”
And such a rise being integrated in the DFT model would result in a drop after the end of the data when reconstructed.
I think the evidence of a ~65 year cycle is strong and may be projected into the near future with some confidence but the huge drop may be partially a result of some secular increase being incorporated into the cyclic model and leading to a saw-tooth component in the reconstruction.

At least this paper considers the sun. The IPCC seem to think the sun is of no account so do not consider it, but then looking at their AR4 energy flow diagram I am not surprised they are so wrong.
Looks as though Bob T is on the case so we might get some good analysis.

The “M6” temperature record, from six european sites is interesting in that it does not show the sudden drop around 1945 that is forced into the Hadley SST records. There is a strong drop but not until mid 1950’s. This is in better agreement with variations in other physically independant records such as accumulated cyclone energy.

Fig 4 above (from ref 1) may work better if the M6 data was not distorted by a bloody running mean.http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/22/data-corruption-by-running-mean-smoothers
15 y runny mean “smoother” has a negative lobe at 1.43*15=10.5 years. Any variation of that period will leak about 20% amplitude through the filter and be INVERTED.
since that is a typical value for the Schwabe solar cycle this could be doing nasty things to the data. Suggest cascaded running mean or gaussian, see above article.

Greg says:
December 17, 2013 at 2:30 am
“The “M6″ temperature record, from six european sites is interesting in that it does not show the sudden drop around 1945 that is forced into the Hadley SST records. There is a strong drop but not until mid 1950′s. This is in better agreement with variations in other physically independant records such as accumulated cyclone energy.”
It’s also in better agreement with the solar variations. Here the solar cycle frequency:http://origin-ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1364682612000417-gr1.jpg

I am confused. The solar magnetic cycle is the dog and PDO is the tail. There is overwhelming evidence that there are warming and cooling cycles (both hemispheres, some of the cooling changes are abrupt climate change events) and that those cycles are caused by solar magnetic cycle changes. Also I do not understand why there is no concern related to the current abrupt solar magnetic cycle change. We do not need to wait a hundred to two hundred years to resolve this issue. It appears the solar magnetic cycle has been interrupted. If Leif is about, please do ask what is meant by a solar magnetic cycle ‘interruption’ and also ask what a Heinrich event is and ask what caused the abrupt end to the last interglacial period. As I noted it appears we are going to experience a Heinrich event.
I found it astonishing at the AGU conference solar ‘update’ presentation that there were no comments concerning the disappearance of sunspots (sunspots becoming smaller and smaller and then as has occurred in the solar northern hemisphere there are no sunspots) which is quite a different observational change than a reduction in the number of sunspots. (Sunspots are the small dark spots in this composite picture and in this visual picture of the sun.) The AGU conference solar update did note the solar heliosphere pressure (solar atmosphere) has dropped 40%.http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/solar/http://www.solen.info/solar/images/AR_CH_20131216_hres.jpg
For example, we had this paper that found 342 climate cycles (warming and cooling) in 240,000 years (with a pseudo cycle of 500 years and 1500 years) in the Southern Hemisphere. There is the same pseudo cycle in the Northern hemisphere. The word pseudo cycle is used as the timing between warming and cooling ‘cycles’ varies but it is roughly 500 years and 1500 years. The solar magnetic cycle is the driver, as there are cosmogenic isotopes at each and every warming and cooling cycle and (a second logical point) the warming and cooling cycles occur simultaneously in both hemispheres and with a duration of a half cycle of warming or a half cycle of cooling, of 70 years to 150 years (chaotic ocean current changes could not affect both hemispheres simultaneously and could not affect the regions for such long periods), except for the Heinrich events which are sever cooling periods of roughly 750 years.
William: Solar magnetic cycle changes cause the planet to warm and to cool cyclically. There are multiple mechanisms, two of which, cause the planet to warm when cosmic ray flux is high thereby making is it appear that increases in cosmic ray flux do not cause cooling. The planet has started to cool due to the most rapid decline in solar magnetic cycle activity in 8000 years.
Does the Current Global Warming Signal Reflect a Recurrent Natural Cycle? (William: Yes it does.) http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdfhttp://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system (William: Solar magnetic cycle changes cause warming and cooling); oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.

“One may note, that the stronger temperature increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, …… is essentially due to the AMO/PDO.”
The death knell for the idiotic idea that the “hiatus” does not disprove the increase due to CO2. Because the PDO “correction” is needed to “restore” the “underlaying AGW” after 2000, whilst before 2000 it must be ignored since there would be no AGW left.
Now that’s what I call: creative accounting.

strike: “There are 2,5 degrees T-anomally difference between 1880 and 2000 in Fig 4? That can’t be Fahrenheit nor Celsius.”
The units of Fig 4 are standard deviations. See “T-Anomaly / sigma” on the scale.

This fits in fairly well with a Chinese tree ring study that has 2500 years of data. It shows the local peak was in 2006. It can be used to hindcast the historical record, and to forecast some 60 years of cooling to 2068. After that it calls for warming to another peak at 2100 but somewhat cooler than 2006. (This is more similar to the stagmite FFT analysis than the wavelet analysis). The power spectrum shows cycles of 1324, 800, 199, and 110 years.
See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/07/in-china-there-are-no-hockey-sticks/ I keep a link to that and a similar Japanese study at http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html

I have been looking at possible causes other than reduced solar activity for the CET temperature drops during past major solar minimums
Graph below is a detrended historical plot of the sea surface temperature anomalies (HADSST3) for the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins from pole to pole The peaks and valleys of this plot match the peaks and valleys of global atmospheric cooling and warming periods over the last 130 years . The surface temperatures of these oceans have peaked and are again heading for a cold trough by about 2040/2045 like they did 1910 and 1975
Courtesy of Bob Tisdale’s and WUWT web pageshttp://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/figure-72.pnghttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/17/a-quick-look-at-the-hadgem2-es-simulations-of-sea-surface-temperatures/
If we hind cast the above ocean graph and in particular the 70 year Atlantic Ocean SST, pole to pole , we find that major SST troughs like 1905/1910 and 1975 could have also happened in 1835, 1765, 1695 For example the North Atlantic Ocean may have been cooling during the following past periods [And probably the Pacific as well.] based on the 70 year pole to pole cycle The major solar minimum periods of cooler CET climate are noted. They do match .
1940 to 1975
1870 to 1910 [Minimum 1880-1910]
1800 to 1835 [Dalton minimum 1790-1820]
1730 to 1765
1660 to 1695 [Maunder minimum 1645-1715]
1590 to 1625
1520 to 1555 [Sporer minimum 1460-1550]
1450 to 1485 [ Sporer minimum 1460-1550]
This could account for much of the cooling noted in the CET records during major solar minimums . These periods are also visible on the following reconstructed North Atlantic SST graph
Courtesy of Bob Tisdalehttp://bobtisdale.blogspot.ca/2008/07/sst-reconstructions.htmlhttp://i36.tinypic.com/wld5kl.jpg
In other words a 70 year major oceans SST cycle could be partly [ together with volcanic eruptions] behind the extra cooling noted during historical major solar minimums .

The sun affects the AMO/PDO by altering global cloudiness via changes in the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles.
Variations in solar input to the oceans cause changes in ocean heat content.

“Having observed the apparent failure of the models with their speculative CO2 component and having seen the relative success of the solar and astronomic influences at anticipating real world changes I have written this article to draw attention to what I consider to be the underlying real world process of global temperature change. Global temperature is controlled quite precisely (although it is difficult to calculate) by solar energy modulated by a number of overlapping and interlinked oceanic cycles each operating on different time scales and being of varying intensities, sometimes offsetting one another and sometimes complementing one another.
Any other single influence such as an enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 is just one of a plethora of other potential but relatively minor influences which as often as not offset one another and leave the solar/oceanic driver unchallenged in terms of scale.”http://www.newclimatemodel.com/the-real-link-between-solar-energy-ocean-cycles-and-global-temperature/
Published by Stephen Wilde May 21, 2008

Fourier T we’ve seen before, to much criticism by the WUWT wrecking crew. I’ll let the crew deal with this. However Sun, AMO, PDO fits the records over shorter periods. Now lets see what is the biggest element here? Logic flash: if the source of heat for earth is our star, and it varies measurably in output and distance from us over time, we don’t need much else. The rest is lags and heat engine work. Analogously, if you are racing down the highway, it’s the motor pushing you. If you have a strong headwind, you will do work on the air that will slow you down; if you have good tailwind, work will be done on you and you will be able to go faster but the motor is the overwhelming principal component. The whole sordid AGW fungus comes from IPCC’s mandate 30 years ago was to measure the effect of man’s effect on climate, not to find out if man is having a major influence or not. Well naturally it meant ignoring the sun.

Bob Tisdale, or anyone else,I have seen some studies correlating Arctic sea ice extent with AMO, most recently, http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-paper-finds-arctic-sea-ice-is.html . What confounds me is does the tail wag the dog or does the dog wag the tail when it comes to ocean & solar cycles and ocean and/or land temperatures & sea ice; I think that CO2, especially manmade CO2, is a miniscule piece of the climate puzzle but the physical mechanisms by which these cyclical and other external factors actually affect the climate seem very uncertain.

These results are very similar to my cooling forecasts using a longer period cycle plus the PDO.
For the development of the quasi periodic quasi repetitive cycle method of forecasting see http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com and guest post on WUWT at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/29/commonsense-climate-science-and-forecasting-after-ar5/
Here is a summary of the conclusions – note the 2100 forecasts,
“In earlier posts on this site http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com at 4/02/13 and 1/22/13
I have combined the PDO, ,Millennial cycle and neutron trends to estimate the timing and extent of the coming cooling in both the Northern Hemisphere and Globally.
Here are the conclusions of those posts.
1/22/13 (NH)
1) The millennial peak is sharp – perhaps 18 years +/-. We have now had 16 years since 1997 with no net warming – and so might expect a sharp drop in a year or two – 2014/16 -with a net cooling by 2035 of about 0.35.Within that time frame however there could well be some exceptional years with NH temperatures +/- 0.25 degrees colder than that.
2) The cooling gradient might be fairly steep down to the Oort minimum equivalent which would occur about 2100. (about 1100 on Fig 5) ( Fig 3 here) with a total cooling in 2100 from the present estimated at about 1.2 +/-
3) From 2100 on through the Wolf and Sporer minima equivalents with intervening highs to the Maunder Minimum equivalent which could occur from about 2600 – 2700 a further net cooling of about 0.7 degrees could occur for a total drop of 1.9 +/- degrees
4)The time frame for the significant cooling in 2014 – 16 is strengthened by recent developments already seen in solar activity. With a time lag of about 12 years between the solar driver proxy and climate we should see the effects of the sharp drop in the Ap Index which took place in 2004/5 in 2016-17.
4/02/13 ( Global)
1 Significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
2 Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22
3 Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
4 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
5 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
6 General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of the little ice age.
8 The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and help maintain crop yields .
9 Warning !! There are some signs in the Livingston and Penn Solar data that a sudden drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures could be imminent – with a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.
How confident should one be in these above predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigor for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up.This is where scientific judgment comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition and meaningful correlation than others. A past record of successful forecasting such as indicated above is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that certainty drops rapidly. I am sure, however, that it will prove closer to reality than anything put out by the IPCC, Met Office or the NASA group. In any case this is a Bayesian type forecast- in that it can easily be amended on an ongoing basis as the Temperature and Solar data accumulate. If there is not a 0.15 – 0.20. drop in Global SSTs by 2018 -20 I would need to re-evaluate”.
It is encouraging to see the peer reviewed papers moving in this direction.

Fitting some curve to past temperature data proves nothing about future temperatures. A best, it might be vaguely suggestive. IMHO. The data period is too short, the data itself is uncertain. Warmist studies that assume a model that fits the past will therefore fit the future are bogus, as is this study.

These cycles show up in the CO2 data as well. They tend to lag temperature by some fraction of the wave length. This suggests the oceans are harmonically responding to the energy coming from the sun. If we have a significant drop in the rate of accumulation of atmospheric CO2 in the next thirty years (following a decline in global temperature) we will know that CO2 is not a significant force but a good lagging indicator of “climate change”.

A little off topic, but NSIDC have screwed up their Arctic sea ice page today and are showing the Antarctic situation instead, which is a real eye opener. It clearly shows that sea ice levels are well in excess of two standard deviations above the 1981/2010 average – enough to make a warmist dive off an ice flow! http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Chris McSweeney says:
December 17, 2013 at 1:11 am
…The very best statisticians should analyse the long-term temperature record and estimate the periodicity and amplitude of such cycles and progressively remove them from the temperature series – beginning with the longest cycles and ending with the shortest (65 years according to these authors). We would then all have a series to look at that has been decyclicized (the equivalent of a statisticians deseasonalized data). Whatever is left might then be attributed to mankind – and/or factors not previously identified. Do we have an eminent statistician who could advise whether or not this is feasible?
ChrisMcS
I am not an “eminent statistician”, but a fairly knowledgeble “cookbook” statistician. I would be willing to bet money that the data are far to noisy to get any useful result from such and analysis. I suspect the error bars would swamp any trending.

RE: Ric Werme says:
December 17, 2013 at 4:33 am
Coldest day of the year in New Hampshire, and it isn’t even winter yet. It was minus nine on my back porch as I left for work in the dark. Down in the Contoocoock River valley it got really cold: minus fifteen in Jaffrey and minus fourteen in Peterborough. Absolutely windless. As the sun came up every house had smoke or steam shooting up from the chimney, and then just hanging in the air. Even the poor fellow at the gas station pumping gas, (who was the only person I saw outside,) left hanging clouds of breath as he bustled about.
If you don’t like the weather, wait until Friday. It’s suppose to be forty with rain.

If figure 4 is correct, we’ll know soon.
I don’t like the degree of certainty in the article, nor the lack of digging into what causes these “natural oscillations”, nor the length of the dataset relative to the breadth of the results, not the dependence (as recounted here) on one stalagmite vs a collection of standards like ice cores, tree rings and lake mud. One stalagmite is not so different than one Yamal tree.
At least it makes a testable assertion. We’ll see.

Please don’t tell me, Old’un, that the Palmer Peninsula is now cooling. Well, sure, it’s now Spring, but what about all that heat that Steig smeared temporally and spatially over the rest of the Antarctic?
================

When approaching a problem in science -the first thing to do is surely to take a look at the blindingly obvious and the simplest and most transparent working hypothesis. The establishment scientific community has resolutely refused to do that. This Luedecke and Weiss paper is a step in the right direction – but why they don’t go a step further and look at the millennial cycle is beyond me. However most other commentators here are still trying to sort out the processes and mechanisms involved in the climate system in order to make predictions or come up with mathematical formulas for the various cycles .This is not necessary for perfectly reasonable and transparent forecasting
Here are some more quotes from the post linked at the 6:11 AM comment above
“It is important to note that it in order to make transparent and likely skillful forecasts it is not necessary to understand or quantify the interactions of the large number of interacting and quasi independent physical processes and variables which produce the state of the climate system as a whole as represented by the temperature metric.” and
“NOTE !! the connection between solar “activity” and climate is poorly understood and highly controversial. Solar ” activity” encompasses changes in solar magnetic field strength, IMF, CRF, TSI ,EUV ,solar wind density and velocity, CMEs, proton events etc. The idea of using the neutron count as a useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved whole as represented by the temperature metric.”
In other words just look at the actual temperature data as shown in FIgs 3,4,and 5 at the link above.
I think that the idea that recent warming represents a peak in the 1000 and 60 year cycles is clearly the first working hypothesis that should be tested. As I said earlier
” .In any case this is a Bayesian type forecast- in that it can easily be amended on an ongoing basis as the Temperature and Solar data accumulate. If there is not a 0.15 – 0.20. drop in Global SSTs by 2018 -20 I would need to re-evaluate”.

The claims may look nice but sorry, it is ludicrous to interpret the accidental maximum of the function at the period of 208 years as a law of Nature even though it was extracted from 400 years of data only (just about 2 periods) and it doesn’t substantially differ from the nearby wiggles. If one calculated the statistical significance of the evidence supporting that “something special goes on around 208 years of periodicity”, the statistical strength would be something like 1 sigma if not less. Such fluctuations are inevitable even for random data (red noise).
The peak at the periodicity of 88 years is arguably much more significant.
It’s also my understanding that there’s no before-20th-century evidence supporting the omnipotence of PDO/AMO/Solar etc.

It’s interesting to see the recent changes in the WUWT Reference page charts for South Atlantic sea surface temps and also the AMO charts. The South Atlantic temps do plunge periodically but they have recovered just as sharply to keep a slight upward trend in the smoothed value. That is not the case of late. The recovery spike is not there so the smoothed value will decline markedly. Meanwhile the AMO has a pattern of periodic spikes with peak to peak trends aligned with the rising value of the smoothed line over recent decades. That too has changed of late as the spike is muted and the smoothed value is about to turn markedly down. It appears there is a recent “sea change” in the Atlantic temp trend charts to go along with general downturn in the PDO and well, we know the story in the solar cycle. All of this raises the question of whether Arctic sea ice coverage is just a random fluke this year or a response to new temp trends in the Atlantic that are not random but cyclical decline. All of this points to more need for sea ice obfuscation by the deniers of cyclical cooling.

We have a serious problem. Everyone who analyzes climate in terms of cycles comes up with different numbers! This is extremely annoying! Excluding Pluto and including the sun and our moon, there are 10 magnetic and gravitationally interacting bodies in the solar system. It can’t be that hard. Of course, I guess if you work for the government there are certain things you just don’t do.

This cracks me up.
1. they use 6 european stations back to 1757. As Anthony will tell you all station exposure prior to the CRS means large uncertainties in the underlying record
2. They do a simple average of the stations.
3. They then use the ANOMALY divided by the standard deviation. Oi vey.
4. They use ice core from antartica to ‘stand in” for the southern hemisphere
Here is a clue. You can find anything you look for. Moreover, you’ll get a much better answer if you divid by the cube root of the standard deviation, multiply by nostradamuses birth weight, and subtract 1.33576, on tuesdays.
Here is another clue. Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.

“Here is another clue. Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.”
Why is that, Mosher? The past 17 years have shown us little to no influence for CO2. Either CO2 has little influence or there are negative feedbacks that counteract the CO2 influence. So why cling to the notion that your CO2 God is all-powerful?

OK.
One. Yes, many people who look at the climate “see” cycles: Yesterday’s temperature went up and down, yesterday’s sun went up and down – but at a slightly different time in the day. Sunday’s cold front went through, and Monday’s temperature went very far down but it was very clear, today’s temperature went down slightly less so, tomorrow’s temperature will be again a little bit higher, and – by Friday – it (might be) – back near-normal again with more clouds. Next spring, maybe like this spring, maybe not.
We are by nature and training and evolution/nature/(intelligent) design able to see cycles, and by nature and design expect to see cycles. So mote it be.
Now, the question is: Are there longer cycles than yearly that either affect climate (temperatures) or is “Climate” (the average of all global temperatures) merely a “number” for whatever cycles happen to be vibrating about (randomly AND resonantly) at today’s moment in time?
Two. I am suspicious of the article’s “200+ year” cycle: It is too conveniently close to their “65 year cycle” third resonance. Also: I understand the PDO/Pacific fisheries cycle is not 65, but closer to 68 years period. (The writers are correct: That 68 (or 65) year cycle extends clearly in the record back to the first records of the Pacific.) Is not 3×68 (198 years) matching what they expect to see during that 200+ cycle?
If a 200+ cycle is “only” 0.15 degrees, but the 68 year cycle is a “barely detectable” 0.10 degrees, every year close to that 200 year resonance point will be 0.25 “high” (on average) over a fairly long period of time- like what we see now.
But what explains the longer 1000 year cycle?
Third: To explore THAT topic: Do we not FIRST have to get some form of “agreement” on what cycles have occurred in the past?
Thus, A Skeptic’s 97% Acceptable Questions:
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the Little Ice Age lowest temperature “bottomed out” between 1600-1650 at -1.0 degrees from today’s reference 0.0?
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the Medieval Warming Period “peaked” between 950-1050 AD at 0.6 degrees above today’s 0.0 reference point in 1970?
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that there were peaks and troughs a bit later: That some years AFTER 1050 were as hot as today, and some years BEFORE the LIA were as cold as that low point?
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that – cycles aside – some years” are “just weather” and some variation from the “average perfect cycle” are going to be different? (But today’s 17 year of “no measurable increase despite CO2 increasing steadily” IS well past statistical variation.)
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that today’s 2000-2015 nominal 0.25 degrees acceptable as a “starting point” to compare past temperatures against some long-term plot?
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the trough of the Dark Ages did occur? (What was that low point, and when did that trough occur?)
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the Roman Warm Period did occur? (But, when did that high point occur, and what was its peak temperature?)
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the Minoean Warm Period did occur? (But, when did that high point occur, and what was its peak temperature?)
Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that we are in a Modern Optimum Period (of unknown duration – now 12,000 years long) between 12,000 year hot points inside a longer 100,000 massive glacier cycle?

From ref [1]:
“The agreement of the reconstruction of the temperature
history using only the six strongest components of the spec-
trum, with M6, shows that the present climate dynamics is
dominated by periodic processes. This does not rule out a….”
I don’t think that is the correct conclusion to draw, especially when the visual comparison this comment relates to is a 15y low-pass filtered version of the data anyway. (As I commented above, it would have fitted even better but for the crappy running mean filter they chose).
“only the six strongest components” really means 16 fitting parameters (probably plus 17th as constant). They should be able to get pretty close to anything with that. It is not proof that climate is dominated by periodic processes.
Sorry, I’d like to agree, but that is not the correct conclusion to be drawn from that model.

Nope. I agree with most of the rest, but I think the LIA really bottomed out in the 1500s. The trend started back up when the Maunder event sidetracked it temporarily giving a false bottom. My best guess, the MWP maxed out in about 1100, the LIA bottomed out around 1550 and the modern warm period maxed out around 2000. A 900 year cycle.

My big question is this… If it fits the temperature of the [last] 200 years, which temperature sets did they use?
If they use the temperature data sets of the global warmists, data sets that have been manipulated down in years past and manipulated up in recent years, doesn’t that pretty much totally destroy any credibility of their research and findings?

Richard M says:
December 17, 2013 at 8:44 am
Mosher says:
“You can find anything you look for. ”
“Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.”
QED.
———
Beat me to it Rchard. Sad thing is Mosher is completely blind to this.

Hi,
This does not seem to be a serious scientific work. You fit pretty much anything well with a 7th degree Fourier decomposition. The periods of the sine and cosine functions in this decomposition are 254/j, j= 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; they are not the ~200 and ~65 always mentionned in the paper.
The affirmation the those two periods are much important than the others in fitting the short temperature history is unsupported (and false).
Also: could someone print this fourier decomposition over a couple of millinia before and after…? We will see how bad a choice this is for prediction.
I just had 10 minutes to look at this during lunch time, but I think that his is not serious.
JD

Mosher says:
“Here is another clue. Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.”
Louis says:
December 17, 2013 at 8:42 am
“Why is that, Mosher? The past 17 years have shown us little to no influence for CO2. ”
Steven is being sarcastic.
/sarc

TBraunlich says:
Love the word “ununderstood”.
I think in climate science there is a lot of ‘misununderstanding’ going on.
Yes, that made me smile too. It’s a double negative, it should have been they are derstood. 😉

RACookPE1978 says:
“Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the Little Ice Age lowest temperature “bottomed out” between 1600-1650 at -1.0 degrees from today’s reference 0.0?”
I hope not, see this CET reconstruction from tonyb: http://snag.gy/GPfpe.jpg
“Do 97% of serious climate skeptics agree that the Minoan Warm Period did occur? (But, when did that high point occur, and what was its peak temperature?)”
It seems that advocates of man-made warming rewrote history and decided that the Minoan Warm Period peaked around 1300-1200 BC, by looking at temperatures in Greenland, and at least 97% of the sceptics believed them: http://i.snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
They actually flourished from around 2700 BC, like many other cultures did, 1300-1200 BC was a
cold period in the temperate zone that caused the demise of most of them, including the Minoans.

strike: “There are 2,5 degrees T-anomally difference between 1880 and 2000 in Fig 4? That can’t be Fahrenheit nor Celsius.”
The units of Fig 4 are standard deviations. See “T-Anomaly / sigma” on the scale.

Also note that the Figure 4 data is for the Northern Hemisphere, as shown in the caption to Figure 6 of reference 1, which says, “Fig. 6.(color online) 15 yr running average record SM6 (black); re-construction RM6 according to Eqs. (1), (3) and (4) (red); projection of future NH temperatures mainly due to the ~ 65-yr periodicity (dashed blue).”
The paragraph above Figure 4 misleadingly says, “This solar “de Vries cycle” together with the AMO/PDO determine practically completely the global climate of the past ( Fig. 4 ).” But Fig. 4 is Northern Hemisphere, not global climate data.

“The AMO/PDO has no external forcing it is “intrinsic dynamics”, an “oscillator”.”
Think what you mean to say is the long term negative to positive cycles for both AMO and PDO are caused by ocean circulation with no external forcing directly, but the very components of it via ENSO are directly related to external forcing.

4. They use ice core from antartica [sic] to ‘stand in” for the southern hemisphere

What article are your reading??
“Ice core from antarctica” is never mentioned in the article. The “southern hemisphere” is not mentioned.
The article does discuss the Spannagel stalagmite results, “However, the temperatures obtained from the Spannagel stalagmite show this periodicity as the strongest, by far, climate variation since about 1100 AD.” and further says “the Spannagel stalagmite agree well with the temperatures derived from North Atlantic sedimentation”. No mention of Antarctic ice core!
A spectral analysis of the Spannagel cave stalagmite temperature reconstruction shows a 197-year period as the strongest climate variation by far since about 1100 AD. The Spannagel cave is located in the Central Alps. Considering the uncertainty in the age model used, the Spannagel temperature cycle very likely corresponds to the “de Vries cycle” (a.k.a.Suess solar cycle). See Fig. 3 at:http://quaternary.uibk.ac.at/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=ee69d3cd-a51d-4c5f-9933-b0c048607ede

This cracks me up.
1. they use 6 european stations back to 1757. As Anthony will tell you all station exposure prior to the CRS means large uncertainties in the underlying record
2. They do a simple average of the stations.
3. They then use the ANOMALY divided by the standard deviation. Oi vey.
4. They use ice core from antartica to ‘stand in” for the southern hemisphere
Here is a clue. You can find anything you look for. Moreover, you’ll get a much better answer if you divid by the cube root of the standard deviation, multiply by nostradamuses birth weight, and subtract 1.33576, on tuesdays.
I agree with Da Mosh here. Indeed, he hasn’t even scratched the surface. First, it is numerology. Fine, I like a bit of numerology as much as the next guy and sometimes numerology preceeds understanding. Second, as several have noted, it is devoid of any hint at the answer to the question WHY does the AMO/PDO/ENSO warm or cool the Earth. I can go grab HADCRUT4 and construct a 3 independent parameter fit to the GASTA that works pretty darn well, and yeah, it will have a ~sixty year sinusoid around a non-periodic secular/linear trend in it, but all that does is SUGGEST that the PDO might be causally linked to it (and says even less about the AMO, that IIRC is more or less chaotic with no particular period, where the PDO appears to be quasi-periodic over at least our very small data range. Was the PDO sixty years back in 1100 BCE? I have no idea. I don’t know how anyone could even reliably/believably tell.
This is yet another in a long line of papers that do fourier analysis of some version of temperature data (usually on a timescale that is absurdly long, and ignoring the probable error in the early data. Fourier analysis is fraught with peril — one can easily get artifacts that have nothing to do with the actual data. In fact, one can hardly NOT get artifacts. It also yields zero useful predictive information, especially without some sort of theory to explain WHY some particular frequency is important.
I’m in the bizarre position, then, if thinking that it is quite possible that the decadal oscillations have a significant influence on GAST (and even having some small inkling as to how they might affect it) while still not trusting somebody else’s numerology any more than I trust my own. It is suggestive, but hardly conclusive.
If we were all completely, painfully honest about error in even HADCRUT4 or the other estimates, we would all probably conclude that one cannot infer anything at all particularly reliably about the past climate. The honest error bars would all be dangerously close to the entire supposed warming or cooling that is supposed to have taken place in size, at least for estimates from before the latter half of the 20th century (or even the latter quarter of the 20th century) on.
In the meantime, just because you can fit a data interval with some model functional form does not mean that the fit will extrapolate outside of the fit region. In actual fact, it almost never will extrapolate outside of the fit region, in some fundamental sense — it will only happen when the actual underlying behavior is really correctly described by the fit form, which requires a theory to justify, not numerology (and can still easily be wrong).
Regarding the one thing Steven said that I don’t completely agree with — I am not convinced that one can separate out the CO_2-linked warming from the natural warming at any point in the climate record. To accomplish this requires a verified model, and so far the models we have are themselves little BETTER than numerology and it is far from clear that THEY will extrapolate/predict outside of some comparatively small fit region of past temperatures (to the extent that we even know them) either. With that said, I don’t believe the top article’s claim of 0.1 to 0.2 any more than I believe the “GCM consensus” that is currently around 2.5 C and dropping. If you wanted to say 1.0 C plus or minus 2.0 C, I might buy it.
rgb

Steven Mosher: Here is another clue. Any result that finds a small influence for C02 is wrong.
That is what has to be decided. All calculations of the supposed CO2 effect have problems, including those that assume a uniform texture to the Earth surface, uniform surface insolation, and uniform .surface temperature. The post today has the limitations that you describe, but might prove to be reasonably accurate.

rgbatduke: This is yet another in a long line of papers that do fourier analysis of some version of temperature data (usually on a timescale that is absurdly long, and ignoring the probable error in the early data.
It will be interesting to see whether any of them survive the upcoming 20 years of new data.
Each new author or set of authors is extraordinarily confident given the liabilities of the method.

As a side note, on WUWT’s ENSO Meter Page, 100% of the ENSO climate models that NOAA tracks now show we’ll be in an El Niño cycle or at least >0.0C by this time next year.
Although my statistics professors would always throw erasers at my head when I said this, we are “due” for an El Niño since we haven’t had one since 2010 and there are huge areas of the Pacific with +2.0C surface temps.
The Warmunists are desperately praying to the CAGW gods for an El Niño event, which they can exploit as “proof” CAGW is still alive and well and that it’s, “worse than we thought TM”…..

Paul Vaughan says, December 17, 2013 at 3:43 am:“This isn’t about total energy input but rather spatial distribution of input and consequent circulation. (Wind is the primary driver of ocean currents.)”
I think you nailed it, Paul. Something truly fascinating happened in the tropical Pacific in 1976/77 and it had long-term pan-Pacific (and thus global) implications. The mean level of the pressure gradient between east and west tropical Pacific, driving the trade winds, suddenly dropped significantly and stayed there for 30 years. This is well reflected in the SOI:http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r565/Keyell/SOI_zps4a244c80.pnghttp://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r565/Keyell/SOIvslatentampwind_zps8dcdab36.png
But what caused this sudden drop? And why did it stay there for three decades?

rgbatduke says:
December 17, 2013 at 3:03 pm: Agree about numerology. It’s as hilarious as that ticking numerologic clock: 399 ppm of CO2 on the wall; 400 ppm of CO2 on the wall. There is a grand global mystery out there waiting to be solved, and idiots run around babbling numbers.

RGB: “If we were all completely, painfully honest about error in even HADCRUT4 or the other estimates, we would all probably conclude that one cannot infer anything at all particularly reliably about the past climate. The honest error bars would all be dangerously close to the entire supposed warming or cooling that is supposed to have taken place in size, at least for estimates from before the latter half of the 20th century (or even the latter quarter of the 20th century) on.”
Indeed, that is the biggest problem. Hadley “bias corrections” are speculative, yet are about as large as the warming effect that is supposed to be be a world threatening crisis. (NB I’m not saying they are adding the warming signal, simply that they are making adjustments that are about as big as the “alarming” rise.)
The world threatening crisis that we and future generations will face is not climate change but the changes that are being forced through using the supposed threat of climate as a pretext.

The work described in this article is interesting, albeit it can’t be perfect when it is matching a version of temperature history (European-station black line in figure 4) which is either atypical of a wider Northern Hemisphere average, or making the common naive mistake (done by near 100% of skeptics) of using data after the usual warmist “adjustments” made by the most highly-funded reporting bodies, or both. Such can be deduced by comparing to the magnitude of mid-20th century temperature peak and dip seen in pre-CAGW-movement data for the Northern Hemisphere average. The global cooling scare by the early 1970s happened for a reason, as seen in thermometer readings published at the time.
Looking at this article’s related PDF, unsurprisingly part of the data used is from the activist-compromised CRU of Climategate, for example.
Antarctica is not a close proxy for global (or Northern Hemisphere) temperatures at this timescale, particularly for the reasons implied in a subsequent link.
Also, as some other commenters have implied, the AMO is not completely independent of solar-GCR forcing: By definition it is merely an index of North Atlantic temperatures relative to the global average, but northern latitudes tend to warm more than the tropics or the global average during any solar-caused warm period (Medieval Warm Period, Holocene Climate Optimum, the recent although soon ending Modern Warm Period including its two peaks in the 20th century, etc.).
Non-revisionist temperature history, double peak rather than hockey stick in the 20th century, does fit well with solar-GCR forcing history, though, as illustrated along with much else (matches too to sea level, humidity, clouds, etc) in http://img250.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=45311_expanded_overview2_122_15lo.jpg
(The prior link is the first new revision in 3 months of my usual grand overview link, adding some more paper references and quotes, though, for those who have seen it before, the bulk of it and its plots are the same).

Greg Says:
“The world threatening crisis that we and future generations will face is not climate change but the changes that are being forced through using the supposed threat of climate as a pretext.”
Precisely! It’s the perception (or optics as Washington hacks call it) that’s most important, not the pursuit of truth and actual scientific discovery.
Intelligent people (like RGB for example ) are honest and realize what they DON’T know but have genuine curiosity and the intelligence to seek and try understand the unknown.
Idiots and tyrants assume (or try to create the impression thereof), that they KNOW for a fact much more than they actually do as a means to obtain a Machiavellian end.
I guess I fall into the “Idiot” category because I “know” for a fact that CAGW is complete and utter BS….
Therein lies the rub….

rgbatduke asks:
“WHY does the AMO/PDO/ENSO warm or cool the Earth. ”
It does neither.
Ocean heat content is simply exchanged for air heat content at varying rates depending on varying internal ocean circulation.
The Earth is warmed or cooled by solar induced changes in total global cloudiness which affects the proportion of solar energy able to enter the oceans and drive the system.
The Hot Water Bottle Effect of the oceans is many magnitudes more powerful than any greenhouse effect.

Doubling CO2 would only cause .1-.2 degree C warming after feedbacks? Even Dr. Roy Spencer goes along with 1.1 degree C per 2x of CO2 before feedbacks, unless he changedhis mind in the past several months.
This means nature has negative feedback by a factor of 5.5-11 on effect of changes in atmospheric concentration of CO2.
I don’t buy that, considering how much nature has allowed climate to change from other causes including solar variations.

rgbatduke says:
December 17, 2013 at 3:03 pmWas the PDO sixty years back in 1100 BCE? I have no idea. I don’t know how anyone could even reliably/believably tell.
I doubt it; certainly the AMO was not even 60 years ago, reconstructions from 1700-2000 shows that the AMO oscillates with period between just over 50 to just under 70 years with the amplitude changing to a similar extenthttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AMO-recon.htms
From this can be concluded that the AMO is not some kind of a fundamental periodicity but a by-product. Another example of numerology elsewhere shows that the AMO could be related (indirectly) to the length and phase of the sunspot cycle.

Lubos Motl said:
“It’s also my understanding that there’s no before-20th-century evidence supporting the omnipotence of PDO/AMO/Solar etc.”
This mistaken belief has only come about because of the blind leading the blind. You can actually follow PDO back ~ 300 years (and possibly further) if you use sound scientific logic.
The PDO is a decadal sea-surface temperature anomaly PATTERN that spans most of the Pacific ocean, Some try to discount its use as a good climate metric by claiming that it is not a measure of the mean sea surface temperature in the North Pacific. They seem to ignore the fact that very few people are actually claiming that it is a measuring the mean sea surface temperature.
When the PDO is positive,sea surface temperature anomalies in the western Nth Pacific and the Sth Pacific Ocean (South of – 30 degrees) are negative, while the temperature anomalies are positive off the west coast of Nth America and in the central and eastern tropical/equatorial Pacific Ocean. When the PDO is negative the sign of the temperature anomalies in each of these regions is reversed.
If you are careful to use trees along the Coastal Rockies of Nth America that are primarily growth limited by temperature, you can use their tree ring widths to get a good idea of the actual sea surface temperature anomalies off the west coast of Nth America.
The long-term temperature anomaly series that is produced from the tree-ring data can be can be cross-checked by a direct comparison with sea surface temperature anomaly obtained from Sr isotope measurements obtained from sea corals in the far Sth Pacific Ocean.
Provided the PDO sea surface temperature pattern has remained stable over the time period in question, the two temperature series should be anti-correlated. This is indeed the result you get.
Unfortunately, some people have unfairly used [well founded] doubt about the use of tree-ring widths of some variety of trees to completely discredit all of the tree-ring proxy measurements. This despite the fact that clear scientific evidence exists to show that,there are some tree varieties that have tree-ring widths that have faithfully measure nearby sea-surface temperature anomalies for well over 100 years.
Please read the following for more detail:
Wilson, I.R.G., 2011, Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation
Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?
The General Science Journal, Dec 2011, 3811.http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Essays/View/3811
andhttp://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/blog-post_02.htmlhttp://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/can-we-predict-when-pdo-will-turn.htmlhttp://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/60-year-periodicity-in-earths-trade.htmlhttp://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/lod-aam-and-land-surface-temperatures.html

It’s unfortunate the authors were not deign to reply to some of the technical criticisms made here. This is probably one of the most poorly executed frequency analyses that I’ve seen get into the PR literature.
Trying to DFT a cropped and inverted half cycle by padding each side with zeroes …. For fear of being rude I will bite my tongue.
Maybe just as well the authors did not show.

The main interest of most commentators here is probably in forecasting future global temperature trends – but most of the discussion seems to center around trying to elucidate the processes involved or various ways of bringing more precision to the numerology.I submit again that it is not necessary to understand the processes involved to make reasonable forecasts .The late 20th century warming peaked at a warming peak in an approximately 60 year cycle. We have every reason to suppose that the next thirty years from about 2000 will be the cooling part of that quasi cycle. It is also obvious by inspection that we may be also at the peak of a millennial cycle – If so surely it is more likely than not that, looking at the last 1000 years that the next 600 will be a down trend .The most conservative assumption given our state of knowledge is that the shape of the downtrend will be similar to the trends between 1000 and 1600.
This idea is also testable in a fairly short time frame -say by 2018 -20. For the Figs and data supporting this argument see http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
I don.t understand why this simple approach to forecasting is not more widely adopted.

Henry Clark says:
“Also, as some other commenters have implied, the AMO is not completely independent of solar-GCR forcing: By definition it is merely an index of North Atlantic temperatures relative to the global average, but northern latitudes tend to warm more than the tropics or the global average during any solar-caused warm period (Medieval Warm Period, Holocene Climate Optimum, the recent although soon ending Modern Warm Period including its two peaks in the 20th century, etc.).”
Looking at the AMO at a yearly noise scale it is well apparent that it is warmest when the solar forcing is at its weakest, the same time as there are strong El Nino’s:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Amo_timeseries_1895-2008.svg

Dr Norman Page says:
December 18, 2013 at 7:59 am
“The main interest of most commentators here is probably in forecasting future global temperature trends – but most of the discussion seems to center around trying to elucidate the processes involved or various ways of bringing more precision to the numerology.”
Agree 100 percent. We are getting well ahead of ourselves trying to elucidate the process. Curve fitting is indeed the best forecasting method available at present. But some folks here are curious about the processes involved and willing to hazard some thoughts on the subject, even if wrong, and I think that’s ok, as long as we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Greg Just look at the Forecasts for Global and NH temps athttp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com . If we cool by about 0.5 by 2035 about half of that would be due to the 60 year cycle and the rest to the 1000 year cycle.

Greg Look at Fig 6 Global The simplest working hypothesis is that the warming of about 0.5 from 1970-75 until 2003 -5 will simply reverse. I assign about 0.25 to each cycle. As to the 1000 year cycle look at the shape of the curve in Fig three it is quite a sharp peak at 1000 so likely will drop off quickly from 2000. By three thousand I would expect a warm peak but probably slightly cooler than the current peak because of the precession cycle,

“The simplest working hypothesis is that the warming of about 0.5 from 1970-75 until 2003 -5 will simply reverse.”
That seems no more justified than assuming the warming will continue unabated. Many will say that is “the simplest working hypothesis”.
“…quite a sharp peak at 1000 ”
The “sharp” peak is about 200 years wide, not 20.
“I assign about 0.25 to each cycle.”
Amplitude or pk-pk ?

Greg – not at all – we are now on the downslope of both cycle peaks.
No – you’re looking at the moving average peak look at the annual data the peak is about 18 – 20 years . The current “hiatus” is about 16-17. We are due a sharper drop in 3-4 years.
Amplitude.

“I assign about 0.25 to each cycle.”
>> Amplitude or pk-pk ?
“Amplitude.”
How do you arrive at that for the millennial cycle? It’s clearly <2K pk-pk which , as I said, gives 0.04 by 2035..
There does seem to be a temporal coincidence in phase of several cycles around Y1k in that reconstruction and I suspect a similar coincidence of peaks may explain a large amount of the Y2k bump. Whether it is the same combination of peaks and will produce the same drop seems a leap of faith but not necessarily incorrect.
The Christiansen reconstruction seems to be the combination of 17 cycles. The logical step if you want to take that approach is to continue the reconstruction.
There are a series of peaks and troughs in the ice core record but they are far from being regularly spaced, so a purely periodic argument looks weak. It does show that the current peak (sadly missing from your figure 4) is not "unprecedented".
I think there is a degree of Mosh's "finding what you want to find" here but it is not more (or less) speculative than expecting continued rise.

It seems the paper in ref [1] managed to find the original data for the HISPALP project. I have only been able to find the “homogenised” version. Despite claims to the contrary, the original data not longer seems to be readily available
I also note that one of the authors on the homogenisation paper is a certain P. Jones. I suppose it is safe to assume that he threw away the original data once he had processed it, or is still in possession but would rather illegally destroy than let anyone else see it.
The description of the data says that as much as 1K “bias” was removed from the early part of some of the long records. OH DEAR, more cooling the past to ensure the “data” fits the model.
As I found here, hadSST3 removes about 2/3 of the variability from the early part of the ICOADS SST data:http://judithcurry.com/2012/03/15/on-the-adjustments-to-the-hadsst3-data-set-2/
So that presumably accounts for the difference in what I was able to get and what is plotted in ref [1].http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=742

Ulric Lyons says:
December 18, 2013 at 7:59 am“Looking at the AMO at a yearly noise scale it is well apparent that it is warmest when the solar forcing is at its weakest, the same time as there are strong El Nino’s:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Amo_timeseries_1895-2008.svg ”
Your AMO index link, which I’ve seen before, shows the AMO dropping down to average relatively low near the start of the 20th century, followed by rise with it high during the 1930s through 1950s, followed by a downturn with it relatively low in the 1960s-1970s, and then rising again during the 1980s-1990s.
The solar activity record such as http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_Part6_SolarEvidence_files/image023.gif shows solar forcing to also average relatively low near the start of the 20th century, followed by rise with it high during the 1930s through 1950s, followed by a downturn with it relatively low in the 1960s-1970s, and then rising again during the 1980s-1990s.
The preceding is far more so than the opposite. For instance, although there are a few blue noise-like negative spikes of the AMO during the high solar activity 1930s-1950s, overall the AMO is a mountain of nearly pure red (positive, high) in your plot link then.
With that said, the end of a solar cycle can correspond to triggering of an El Nino soon after the ocean heat input of the solar maximum has recently ended, like evidence of a negative feedback backlash temporarily opposing the change (such as the 1997-1998 El Nino which went off during the solar minimum which was at the end of high solar activity cycle 22, with a spike in the AMO then). That timing distinction doesn’t eliminate the overall picture in terms of the pattern in decadal averages but can be seen at annual resolution, amounting to a noteworthy aspect of the climate system (as in effectively a negative feedback with temporary overshoot; one article here once suggested somewhat similar for a major volcanic forcing’s aftermath as well).
The overall trends in the AMO, though, are as can be illustrated by adding some highlights to your plot link in the following while comparing to solar forcing meanwhile:http://img131.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=23392_sun_amo_122_190lo.jpg

Greg as to uncertainty I say “How confident should one be in these predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigor for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up.This is where scientific judgment comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition than others. A past record of successful forecasting is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that, inevitably ,certainty must drop.”
The chief uncertainty as far as I’m concerned is the period of the 1000 year cycle which probably floats about from 950 – 1050 as cyclic resonances come and go so the solar peak may be delayed
until 2050. I believe e.g. .Scafetta shows a peak about 2060.
The observation favouring an earlier cooling comes from the unprecedented decline in solar activity and relatively high neutron count near the cycle 24 maximum.

Henry Clark says:
“The overall trends in the AMO, though, are as can be illustrated by adding some highlights to your plot link in the following while comparing to solar forcing meanwhile:http://img131.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=23392_sun_amo_122_190lo.jpg”
That is a bogus solar chart, solar cycles 12-14 were low, and who says you have the most relevant solar metric anyway? I would be looking at the Ap index.
The strongest solar warming phases last century pushed the AMO far into the negative range. Warming stopped from 1998 and the positive AMO phase returned:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Amo_timeseries_1895-2008.svg
And there would be hysteresis from shifting large volumes of water about that would affect inter-decadal AMO trends, but that has nothing to do with the real time solar forcing.

Ulric Lyons says:
December 19, 2013 at 9:55 am
“That is a bogus solar chart”
That solar plot is from a Soon 2005 paper as shown at http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_Part6_SolarEvidence.htm .
Solar activity being relatively low in the early 20th century compared to later, rising to be high during the 1930s-1950s, dipping during the subsequent global cooling scare, and rising/high during the 1980s-2000s until starting to have somewhat substantial downturn by the 2009-2010 solar minimum and beyond … is a picture both illustrated there and in quite a number of other ways.
That is seen in the history of sunspot counts, solar cycle lengths, cosmic ray counts, etc.
For instance, adding another plot from http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/geomag/image/aassn07.jpg to the prior comparison to the AMO meanwhile gives the following:http://img180.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=15253_more_sun_amo_122_662lo.jpg
Ulric Lyons says:
December 19, 2013 at 9:55 am
“solar cycles 12-14 were low”
You state that as if such is an argument in favor of your position, but it isn’t. Solar cycles 12 to 14 (which were from 1878 to 1913) are shown in the plots as lower solar activity than later in the 20th century. As the preceding link also shows, the AMO was on average falling meanwhile, fitting what I have been pointing out.
Another plot of AMO history, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Atlantic_Multidecadal_Oscillation.svg from van Oldenborgh et al, shows the AMO as having sometimes lesser values meanwhile than in your link, but something they both have in common is showing the AMO as declining during that relatively low solar forcing time.
Ulric Lyons says:
December 19, 2013 at 9:55 am
“The strongest solar warming phases last century pushed the AMO far into the negative range.”
In contrast to your claim, in reality:
The strongest solar warming periods last century were during the late 1920s through the 1950s (with the AMO rising/high meanwhile) and during the 1980s-1990s (with the AMO rising meanwhile and with it being high by the subsequent maximum of solar cycle 23 afterwards). That is as illustrated by the graphs athttp://img180.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=15253_more_sun_amo_122_662lo.jpg
… along with the references given (and many others).
While the plot of the AMO in your link (which supports my points) ends in 2008, the low 2009-2010 solar minimum and the somewhat weak current solar maximum will be followed likely by a major downturn in solar forcing soon, a coming Grand Minimum. If so, the AMO index (among other temperature indexes including global average temperature itself) will decline later this decade and beyond.
Anyway, your methods of attempting argument are getting worse, as common in internet arguments when someone gets stuck trying to defend or distract from a bad position rather than honestly just admit what was wrong with it.

Henry Clark says
“You state that as if such is an argument in favor of your position, but it isn’t.”
Yes it is, your purple arrow indicates solar activity was higher around 1880:http://img180.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=15253_more_sun_amo_122_662lo.jpg#
With a low solar cycle 12 it obviously was not higher around 1880, and one of the lowest Ap index episodes in the whole series is at around 1879-1881.
“In contrast to your claim, in reality:
The strongest solar warming periods last century were during the late 1920s through the 1950s (with the AMO rising/high meanwhile) and during the 1980s-1990s…”
You’ll have a hard job showing where the warming through the 1950’s was, as for the warming from 1970 to the late 1990’s, that’s when the AMO was in the negative:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Amo_timeseries_1895-2008.svg
“If so, the AMO index (among other temperature indexes including global average temperature itself) will decline later this decade and beyond.”
No the lower solar activity will give more negative NAO/AO episodes, the resultant jet stream displacement will ensure greater northerly transport of warmer sea water, and more positive AMO conditions will be maintained, just like through the weaker solar cycles 12-14.
“Anyway, your methods of attempting argument are getting worse, as common in internet arguments when someone gets stuck trying to defend or distract from a bad position rather than honestly just admit what was wrong with it.”
Lets see if you can admit your error with your purple arrow then, if not, your insinuations are projections.

For your information: In their explanation of the so-called greenhouse effect Link and Luedecke (2010, http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Treibhauseffekt_Lue_Li.pdf) claimed that doubling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere would lead to an increase of the Earth’s surface temperature of 1.1 K. In their paper entitled A NEW BASIC ONE-DIMENSIONAL ONE-LAYER MODEL OBTAINS EXCELLENT AGREEMENT WITH THE OBSERVED EARTH TEMPERATURE Link and Luedecke (2011, IJMPC, http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0129183111016361) concluded:
“Our model yields a change in the surface temperature of the Earth of roughly 1.1 K for an additional radiative forcing of 3.7 W/m^2 – caused for instance by a hypothetical doubling of the present CO2 concentration in the atmosphere - which is in good agreement with the appropriate
IPCC value, if no feedback amplification (or attenuation) is considered.”
First of all, the computation of this 1.1 K differs from that of 2010. Second, it is not a model result because the model of Link and Luedecke contained three unknowns, but only two linear independent equations exist. This means that their model is unsolvable. Their “excellent agreement” is based on the fact that Link and Luedecke inverted the value of the emitted infrared radiation of about 396 W/m^2, calculated by Trenberth et al. (2009) , by applying the power law of Stefan and Boltzmann. Thus, Link and Luedecke obtained the result that Trenberth et al. (2009) used as an input.
It should be noticed that Bruce B. Hicks, former Director of the Air Resources Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated in a book review two decades ago (Boundary-Layer Meteorol. 1990; 53, 297-302):
“Some papers report on models that are developed, adjusted to fit a set of observations, and then ‘validated’ by comparison against the same data set. As a scientific community, we should urgently work on setting an appropriate punishment for those convicted of this crime.”
Note that the results of Link and Luedecke (2011) illustrated in their Figures 2 and 3 are arbitrarily wrong.

For permission, contact us. See the About>Contact menu under the header.

All rights reserved worldwide.

Some material from contributors may contain additional copyrights of their respective company or organization.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on WUWT. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. This notice is required by recently enacted EU GDPR rules, and since WUWT is a globally read website, we need to keep the bureaucrats off our case!
Cookie Policy